One moment I am in sleepâ€™s warm embrace and the next my ears are ringing with a deafening thunderclap and I am scrambling across the floor like a cockroach caught in the open. It is Saturday morning in Baghdad. Another loud explosion. The floor shakes and the walls reverberate. Suicide car-bomb at the main gate, I think. Another massive thunderclap. I know that an incoming 120mm mortar makes a shrill whistling sound as it flies toward its target. But I canâ€™t hear anything now because of the ringing in my ears.
A few moments later I hear the faint sound of sirens and the public address system ordering everyone to the nearest bomb shelter. I stay put. Head down. I have been toughened up by countless mortar, rocket and suicide car-bomb attacks on the heavily fortified International Zone. I know better than to try and make a dash to the bomb shelter. Forget what the security guys say. I am staying put in my room until the â€œall-clearâ€ sounds.
As the ringing in my ears recedes I grope for the remote control and turn the channel to CNN; just in time to see Zain Verjee, the Kenyan-born anchorwoman, report a mortar attack in Baghdad. â€œNo report of casualties yet,â€ she says. Just another day in Baghdad â€” I mutter to myself.
After the â€œall-clearâ€ I dress and head to my office. The sky is a brilliant baby-blue. The glare is blinding and the mercury has already soared past 40 degrees. The heat hits me like a warm blanket; momentarily taking my breath away. I pity the poor soldiers who have to wear full battle gear in this weather â€“ helmet, Kevlar body armor, M-16 assault rifle, M-9 pistol, spare ammunition and combat boots. Thank God all I have to carry is my lap-top.
As I pass the Gurkha sentry position outside the Ministry I pick up a copy of the Stars and Stripes newspaper. Todayâ€™s news makes me want to throw-up. â€œUS forces killed two Iraqi womenâ€”one of them about to give birthâ€”when troops shot at a car that failed to stop at a check-point. Doctors failed to save the baby and the mother,â€ â€œThree killed in Iraq as eight heads found in a boxâ€ another headline screams. â€œUS Marines accused of the cold-blooded slaying of 24 civilians in Haditha,â€ reports the Associated Press.
The violence in Iraq is relentless and mindless. What began as a fight by Saddam loyalists, religious fanatics and Sunni Arab nationalists against foreign military occupation has now morphed into a killing free-for-all.
According to Iraqâ€™s morgues institute, 6,002 corpses were found in the past five months. Most are found with hands tied behind their backs, showing signs of torture and with a bullet in the back of the head. Before the toppling of Saddam Hussein in 2003, the institute used to receive only seven to 10 corpses per day.
This morning my secretary tells me that even street sweepers and ice-peddlers are being killed. Worse news is to follow. A director-general in the ministry of finance was picked up from his home by unknown gun-men last week. Today, his body was found beheaded. No ransom request. Just a headless body returned to a grieving widow and children.
It seems that not since Attila the Hunâ€™s aggressive campaign against the Roman Empire or the gory reign of Vlad the Impaler â€” the â€œreal Draculaâ€ â€” have more rivers of blood been shed in the pursuit of power.
I am told that it is impossible to understand the insurgentâ€™s barbaric response to occupation unless your own country has been occupied. But Uganda was occupied after dictatorial president-for-life Idi Amin (1925-2003) invaded Tanzania and formerly annexed the 700 square mile Kagera salient on November 1, 1978. Yet, I cannot recall a single suicide attack against a Tanzanian soldier. I do not recall any mortars being lobbed at the Tanzanian invaders by nationalists resisting the occupation of Uganda.

Some have argued that Iraqis are in such a killing frenzy because the US â€œshock and aweâ€ campaign took just two weeks to destroy their mighty military machine. The Spartan Brigade of the US Third Infantry Division with fewer than a thousand men and facing Iraqi forces dug into bunkers and buildings punched a hole through the heart of Baghdad with a high-speed charge to Saddamâ€™s Presidential Palace. Many Iraqi soldiers threw down their guns or surrendered during the mechanised â€œthunder run.â€ The much-feared Republican Guard melted away with barely a whimper. What we are experiencing now I am told, is delayed reaction to their pathetic performance on the battlefield.
But the Uganda Army also collapsed like a deck of cards in 1979. The Malire mechanised Suicide Regiment under the command of Col. Juma Butabika turned out to be a disorganised, dispirited and under-equipped force.
Tanzania had their own â€œshock and aweâ€ campaign: the rolling artillery storm of Katyusha rockets (popularly known as Saba Saba) that terrified the Ugandan troops. The undisciplined soldiers spent most of their time roasting pigs and chicken looted from the villagers and getting drunk on the local brew. This prompted Gaddafi to send 3,000 troops to shore up Amin, but the Libyans soon found themselves on the front line, while behind them Ugandan Army units were using supply trucks to carry their newly plundered wealth in the opposite direction.
On April 11, 1979, Kampala fell to a force of 800 soldiers from the 19th Division of the 108th Brigade of the Tanzanian Peoples Defence Forces under the command of Lt. Col Benjamin Msekwa. The six-month war that cost Tanzania an estimated $1m per day ended with the local population celebrating the ouster of Amin with a looting spree.
In 1979, Ugandans understood that the Tanzanians had come to remove Amin, whose rule had become synonymous with barbarity and buffoonery. With up to 500,000 dead, many eaten by crocodiles or dumped in Namanve Forest; resistance to occupation was never an option. We knew that with the Amin regime relegated to the pit-latrine of history the Tanzanians would go home. And they did eventually.
Ends

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